Jake Johnson’s Lowery Won’t Return in ‘Jurassic World 2’

Let’s get this on the record: I am not a very big fan of Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World. Too many of the characters seemed to be vague recreations of people from the first Jurassic Parkmovie; with nobody there for audiences to really connect with, the film feels more like a disjointed series of dinosaur set pieces than a truly engaging story. That being said, my wife loves every movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, so I will happily continue to see them with her until we find a way to actually clone dinosaurs and they wipe us off the face of the earth. There is no such thing as a bad movie date.

That’s why I have been holding onto Jake Johnson’s character Lowery from Jurassic World so tightly since the sequel was announced. While I may not be excited by the idea of Jurassic World 2, I straight-up loved the awkward (and very meta) computer technician Johnson played in the first film. From his misguided nostalgia for the original park to the hilarious “I have a boyfriend” scene, Johnson was a breath of fresh air in a stale formula and a subtle promise that these movies might open up a bit more in the future. And with one tweet (via Heroic Hollywood), Johnson took all of that away from me.

What we know about the plot of the next movie does make it seem like Johnson wouldn’t be a great fit. His character was not part of the core group of characters who bonded over the events of the first one, nor is he connected to the evil technocrats who will drive the reported darker tone of Jurassic World 2. He was just a funny and a little sad supporting character who peppered the first film with some much-needed humor, and now off he goes to supporting character movie heaven.

Given how thoroughly Hollywood’s tail wags the dog, we could start a social media campaign to bring Johnson’s character back, complete with an obligatory change.org petition and a catchy #SaveLowery hashtag, and Universal Pictures would probably panic and write him back into a later version of the script for our enjoyment. But as a movie fan first and foremost, I’d rather just let the filmmakers make their movie their way, even if it means no Jake Johnson. I’ll just enjoy the time that Johnson and I had together in Jurassic World and hope that another character — any character, literally any character, seriously, please, any character — gets to be more than a walking action figure in the second film. Fingers crossed.